


Foul is Fair

by fiftysevenacademics (rapiddescent)



Category: Macbeth - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: F/F, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Feminist Themes, Lesbian Character, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Sisters, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapiddescent/pseuds/fiftysevenacademics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three wronged women get back at the world with a prank that will succeed beyond their wildest dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foul is Fair

A fierce storm thrashes the autumn night that three middle-aged women plan their annual prank. Thunder and lightning crash around them, but they are safe and dry in a cozy cottage deep in the woods. They agree to meet on the heath in a month, and go their separate ways to hunt ingredients needed for their plan, each one excited to see what will happen. It's their favorite time of year.

When she was a girl, Mary broke off an engagement to the shoemaker’s son, angering her parents, the shoemaker’s family, and confusing the entire village, because the boy was handsome and destined to take over his father’s trade. It was good match for a poor farmer’s daughter, and her mother berated her for weeks. Mary felt deliriously happy, in spite of her mother’s threats and the dirty looks from other village girls, because now she could run away with the one she truly loved. She confided only in her younger sister, Catherine, who shared her happiness and did not tell their parents.

Elizabeth’s mother was a widow who lived in a hut at the edge of the village and survived by taking in laundry, mending clothing, and doing any odd job she could find. She had no property, no important name, no skills beyond what any woman possessed, nor even particular beauty, in spite of her youth, that might attract another husband. Since the village was small and not very wealthy, she occasionally had to supplement her income with gifts from men, who always expected a little something from her in return. Elizabeth grew up often dirty, usually ragged, rarely well-fed, but always loved dearly by her mother. She didn’t realize until she was seven years old that “dirty whore” wasn’t just another word people used that meant, “mother”, and when she was twelve, people started using it for her, too, even though she was still a virgin and never offered up to men.

Mary met Elizabeth when she helped her mother bring what meager vegetables they could spare to sell in the market. They whiled away whole afternoons jumping over puddles and throwing rocks at birds or, if it was hot, sitting in the shade and telling each other stories about princesses, knights, and kings. When she was old enough to run errands on her own, Mary found excuses to go into town, where she spent the day with Elizabeth in her hut, or helping with whatever chore or job she had.

As time passed, Mary found herself incapable of picturing any life that did not have Elizabeth in it. When other girls giggled and gossiped about boys, her thoughts turned toward Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth’s face she pictured as the beloved in all the songs the girls would sing. And when she pictured what her first kiss would be like, the only lips she could imagine pressed to hers were Elizabeth’s.

When she was about thirteen or fourteen, Mary’s parents forbade her from seeing Elizabeth.

“Associating with a girl of such ill-repute will not help you find a decent husband,” her mother insisted.

She could only go into town without her parents if accompanied by Catherine. At first, Catherine tried to enforce the parental ban on Elizabeth, but she was used already to deferring to her older sister, and Mary would take over one of her chores at home each time she agreed to not tell their mother. Elizabeth was a clever, capable, generous girl with chestnut hair and green eyes that sparkled when she saw Mary.

Anyone could see how much she liked Mary, and Catherine didn’t see what could be so terrible about spending time with someone like that. She wasn’t a whore, even if her mother was, and she was kind. Besides, Mary was radiant for days after a visit, and Catherine didn’t have enough spite toward her older sister to want to deny her that pleasure.

This is how it came to pass that Catherine walked into Elizabeth’s cottage an hour earlier than she had promised one day and found her sister’s face buried between Elizabeth’s bare breasts, her own bodice unlaced and her hair, tangled. Mary leaped up, clutching at her dress and frantically trying to put her hair back in place. Elizabeth shrank back against the mattress, covering herself with her hands.

“Don’t tell, Catherine! It’s not what it looks like! Please, we weren’t doing anything wrong. Don’t tell anyone!”

Catherine was at a loss for words. Was this sort of thing even possible? Was it a sin? Was it her duty to stop her sister from going to hell? Girls held hands and stroked each other’s cheeks, and even kissed each other sometimes and no one thought anything of it. Was this different from that?

Looking at their faces, though, she knew this was, in fact, not quite the same as the ordinary expressions of affection between friends. Holding hands and sharing delicate pecks on the cheeks, or even lips, was one thing. Undressing and kissing each other on the breasts would be another, right? That was more like what men did with women, right? And, surely, there must be something unnatural about it.

Mary began to cry, softly at first, then in great, piteous howls that broke Catherine’s heart.

“Mary, we need to leave,” she said.

Mary hugged Elizabeth and kissed her without restraint.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, and to Catherine she said, “Yes, this is how it is, sister. Now you know. Whether you tell or not won’t change a thing.”

Catherine did not tell their mother, and things went on as usual for another few months, with Catherine helping Mary’s secret visits to Elizabeth, until she finally gave into pressure from her parents and agreed to marry the shoemaker’s son, and had to stop seeing Elizabeth.

She felt like all the air had been sucked from the sky, all the water drawn from her skin. She choked through her days and cried through her nights until she said, “No more,” and returned gifts back to the shoemaker’s son. On the day she was supposed to have been married, Mary vanished into the forest with Elizabeth. At first, only Catherine knew where they were, but over time, word traveled, and people feared and avoided their cottage in the woods.

Catherine ended up marrying the shoemaker’s son, and although he ran a successful business, he drank too much and gambled away most of their money. They were always broke and when he was drunk, he beat her badly. One night, she showed up, bruised, bloody and cradling a broken wrist, at Mary’s door. She never left again.

They have a little garden and raise pigs and goats. They carve little statues of the Virgin out of wood they cut in the forest, paint them with pigments they mix themselves, and sell them to a merchant who deals in such things. They use the money to buy flour and a few other necessities. People call them witches, and make signs to ward off the evil eye when they go into town. In years when the crops fail or the animals get sick, someone will invariably burn their crops or kill their animals under cover of night.

One year, the robust, oldest son of the wealthiest farmer in town wasted away and died within a month. Men with clubs and spears burst into their cottage and tossed all three women, roped together, in the back of an oxcart that hauled them to town. They endured torture and interrogation, but, amazingly, were not convicted of witchcraft, and were freed to live with the legacy of terror and chronic pain.

They indulge their desire for revenge just once each year, and it is enough. Tonight, they dump a bizarre hodgepodge of ingredients they’ve gathered from near and far into a cauldron and let it heat till it boils and bubbles and stinks. Catherine hides herself closer to the road and spies two men approaching. She learns that the more richly dressed one is Macbeth, a man of valor and noble exploits of which everyone has heard, and scurries back to her sisters. They laugh uproariously, and giggle mischievously as they stir, chanting:

The weird sisters, hand in hand,  
Posters of the sea and land,  
Thus do go about, about:  
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine  
And thrice again, to make up nine.  
Peace! the charm’s wound up.

The men freeze with terror in their tracks. Catherine calls, “All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!” The men reach for their swords. The women laugh harder at the sight. Mary croaks, “All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!” And Elizabeth cackles, “All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!”

Macbeth puts down his sword. Now he wants to know more.


End file.
